Chapter 38: Finally Done with Day One

And so ended the last class of his first—first!—day of magic school.

Suffice to say, things hadn't gone as smoothly as he would have liked. By any means, really. At this point, all Sans had to say on the matter was that he was glad it was over with.

For now.

What a pleasant thought.

He hadn't even been to all of his classes—in fact, he hadn't yet read through his full schedule. All he knew was that the class taught by Fake-Eye Moody was still in his future, which he was not looking forward to taking. Hopefully whatever classes he still had went better than this first set.

Or at least better than Potions.

Please.

Sans was moving with the crowd of students through the castle halls, but if he hadn't been surrounded by witnesses he probably would have stopped to bang his head against the wall. Of all the classes he had made dumb mistakes in today, Potions was undoubtedly the one he'd messed up most.

And he hadn't even done anything.

Kinda.

One sentence, that was all it had taken. Five words he'd said once before, and bam—the professor was all suspicious and scowl-y. Repeating lines had been such second nature back in the Underground that it had actually taken Sans a moment to figure out what was worth frowning about.

So great. Most of the secret would probably hold simply because of how implausibly farfetched the truth actually was: dimensional travel into the past likely wouldn't be anyone's first explanation. Yet here he was, having managed to accidentally halfway out himself to the one person in the whole school who had any pieces of the puzzle and therefore might actually have a chance to figure things out.

Good going, Sans.

At which point he had, of course, CHECKED his gloomy professor to get a better read of the man.

What he found was… a bit odd, to be honest.

Professor Snape was at a solid LV4, which certainly wasn't good news; it meant that he had purposefully killed before. But while he had the attack and defense to match, he had only 22 HP. That's quite a bit lower than expected, given the level.

To be very brief, HP represents hope. A bit cheesy and poetic, but true nonetheless. It is how far somebody can push themselves—how far they are willing to go—before breaking. That definition isn't a perfect measure, obviously (as evidenced by, say, Sans himself), but it generally served well enough.

Murder is essentially asserting one's own life over another in the most fundamental way possible, hence why higher LV generally means higher HP. Raising max HP without butchery is tricky, since that's basically finding new strong motivators in life: more reasons to live.

But there are a number of reasons why max HP would drop.

Two of the most effective, Sans knew, were guilt and regret.

Which painted a rather interesting picture of the dour potions professor, to be sure: observant and introspective, yes, but also willing to kill for what he believes is right. With a sigh, Sans realized that he would need to consider future interactions with him very carefully.

But he'd get around to that later.

As for the revelatory mistakes he had made in his other classes, well. Having a misstep in three out of four classes was a rather dismal performance, so it would seem that he was badly out of practice when it came to laying low.

Although, to be fair, he was pretty sure that the skillset needed for this undercover gig differed quite a bit from his last secret-keeping venture in the Underground. Back then he had only ever really needed to fool one person—or perhaps three-ish people, depending on how you counted. Anybody else who might accidentally find out something would eventually un-find-out whatever it had been, after all.

Still, he had always been careful to keep the timeline-reset part of the whole thing completely under wraps. As the saying goes, three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.

He chuckled to himself, darkly amused at just how fitting that particular idiom was given the situation between between a certain child, flower, and phantom. Though in that case, the two dead didn't exactly stay that way.

"Sans?"

He blinked, refocusing on where (and when) he was. "what's up?"

"Are you alright?" Laura, who had been walking with him in companionable silence, seemed worried. "You looked… kinda sad, for some reason. But also angry?"

Not used to being read so easily, Sans didn't reply for a second. Humans tended to have difficulty reading emotion off a skull, and while his was more expressive than most, he still didn't exactly have the most emotive face… A lock of white hair fell into his line of sight.

Oh. Right.

Actually having a face now probably made things a bit easier. Shoulda realized that earlier, probably.

"Sorry if I'm prying, I was just—"

He waved it off. "no big, i was just thinking about stuff."

Laura still looked concerned, but decided not to press for more answers. "I'm so glad today is over," she said, changing the topic. "But at least it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be."

"wasn't it just," Sans said, tone flat.

She had a funny sort of grimace-grin on her face, as if she was sorry for having brought it up but still amused by it in general. "Right, your day has been a bit more exciting than mine, hasn't it? Did you really get in trouble with Professor McGonagall?"

"how—" He cut himself off, choosing a better question. "who even told you that? we've been in class this whole time."

"I overheard some of the other Ravenclaws talking about how to midy- uh…" Laura was unfamiliar with the word, and looked to him for help. "Minigate?"

"probably 'mitigate'," Sans supplied.

"Yeah, that." She nodded. "Mitigate your point losses. Which I think means they want to keep you from losing more or something, right?"

"or make those losses matter less." With a shrug, he added, "but to answer your question—no, i only kinda got in trouble."

"Kinda?"

He briefly debated if he should tell her at all, then decided that the rumor mill was going to get ahold of it eventually whether he wanted it to or not. "she says she wants to hold extra lessons with me to help with control."

Her eyes lit up. "Seriously?! That's amazing!"

"it is?"

"Yes!"

Sans gave a noncommittal hum, though he could somewhat understand where she was coming from; if nothing else, it'd give him time to ask more specific questions about magical mechanics. So at least the additional lessons promised to be more interesting than the usual classes.

It was pretty clear that the excitement of the day had significantly more to do with his sudden inability to avoid drawing unwanted attention to himself and very little to do with the content of the lectures he'd sat through. Lectures had never worked well for him anyway; reading through the material just always seemed like a better option.

He'd done a lot of reading over the summer, taking time between naps to learn more about his new reality.

Back in the Underground, reading had helped keep him sane. It was something he could enjoy in spite of resets and undone-time crap, since all he needed to do was remember the page number where he had left off and he could actually make progress on something.

Besides his reading habits, however, boring course content was honestly to be expected: plopping somebody who essentially has a PhD in a magical engineering field back into starter high school doesn't result in the most engaging learning experience. Especially when the professors generally didn't seem concerned with how the magic worked, just how to make it work; that's the difference between tossing a ball into the air and knowing it would fall back down, and figuring out why.

After that long thoughtful pause, he finally said, "well, at least i'll get a chance to ask all the questions i could want."

"You're such a Ravenclaw," Laura said, chuckling.

"am i?"

She nodded and, somehow managing to not sound at all judge-y, stated simply, "I bet you spent all summer reading books, didn't you."

Alright, so that's true. Still.

"bold of you to think i'm in this house for any reason beyond how good i look in blue." He flipped his poorly tied blue tie over his shoulder, as if that was the fashionable thing to do.

That actually got her to laugh out loud and Sans grinned to himself, pleased: there's really nothing better than a well-delivered joke.

As they continued through the halls, sometimes chatting and sometimes just walking together in silence, Sans became aware of just how tired he was. It had been a long day, to say the least, and full of new experiences. He'd had precious few of those before this entire trans-dimensional situation began. Even though the actual material being taught was fairly boring at the moment, just being present and participating was already plenty of excitement—almost too much, really.

He was pretty exhausted.

On that thought, maybe he should just skip dinner altogether. Just duck out of the crowd of students heading for the Great Hall and the promise of food in favor of curling up in a ball of blankets. Then at least he wouldn't need to deal with inconvenient questions or curious ghosts or… well, just people (alive and less-so) in general.

Which wasn't to say that Laura was annoying, or that he didn't want to chat with Luna about whatever topic might take her fancy—not to mention seeing Harry, Ron, Hermione, and dog-mode Sirius… But the past day had been spent around more people than most of the rest of his life, and as such he felt that he was overdue for a nice nap.

It was a good plan, Sans decided.

They became aware of angry-sounding voices up ahead, though they couldn't quite make out what was actually being said. The voices were familiar, though, which was a bit worrying.

The two of them rounded the corner—

Just in time to immediately need to dodge a flare of white-hot spell fire.

Which Sans did, easily.

Laura was not so lucky.

The spell had caught her on the top of her head, and her hair swiftly caught fire. It spread frighteningly quickly, down her braid and onto her robes. She shrieked, a terrible mix of fear and pain, frantically trying to beat out the flames.

The student who had cast the spell—the snooty one from the train yesterday, Malfoy or whatever—had an expression of shocked horror on his pale face.

Sans ignored him.

He needed to do something.

He needed water.

There was a lake outside.

Teleporting there would be impossible to explain.

Going the other direction, however…

Instantly, a hole in reality opened directly over her head and cold water flooded out: the other end of the shortcut was in the lake itself. The fire was completely doused, as was anybody standing in the unexpected splash zone. A few fish flopped about on the floor, completely disoriented, until Sans swiftly sent them back to the lake.

Water would be hard enough to explain as-is.

This all happened within a span of five seconds, leaving Laura grateful but also a very soaked and confused as to what had just happened. Her knees folded under her, and she abruptly sat with a splash.

"How did— What—"

With that dealt with, Sans spun back around to give that reckless jinx-flinging prick a piece of his mind.

And instead he saw Fake-Eye Moody—no idea when he had shown up—magically tossing a white ferret ten feet into the air and letting it fall back against the floor. The snooty boy who had cast the spell was nowhere to be seen, so he had to assume that he had actually been turned into that ferret.

On closer inspection, he could feel the magic keeping the form twisted from boy to animal. He didn't take a shot at undoing it himself for various reasons.

But seriously. Turned into a ferret.

Sans decided that his patience for this day was well and truly bone-dry at the moment.

"—attacking when your opponent's back is turned," the imposter-professor was saying, voice a low growl. The ferret was tossed higher and higher, squeaking in pain. "Cowardly, scummy thing to do…"

Make no mistake, Sans was no stranger to flinging evil children through the air every now and then. And he did feel that Malfoy needed some serious disciplining: throwing around spells like that definitely warranted a punishment of some kind.

Still, this just seemed… excessive.

Even Laura—singed and missing a good chuck of hair—was watching the flung ferret with wide eyes, wincing with each landing.

"okay, i think that's enough," Sans said, walking forward.

He noticed three familiar students and a dog standing a little separate from the rest of the spectating crowd, and couldn't help but groan. They must have been the other half to that argument he had heard earlier.

Stars above, he really needed a nap.

"Never— do— that— again—" Moody was still throwing the ferret into the air, punctuating each drop back to the stone floor with a snarled word.

"heya, prof," he called, drawing attention to himself as he approached. "think you could stop tossing that poor kid around and, oh, i dunno, get my friend to the infirmary?"

Looking past him, Hermione spotted Laura and her burnt clothes and the water and quickly surmised at least some of what must have happened: she'd question where the water came from later. At the moment, though, she immediately rushed over to her, checking her over and even draping her own outer robe over the now lightly shivering girl. Laura was absolutely soaked, and the perpetual chill of the castle air was not doing her any favors.

Sans kept his eyes on Moody. "you have weird priorities, you know that?"

The transfigured student was caught mid-air, dangling like a fluffy limp noodle. Fake-Eye Moody spared Sans a quick glance with that crazy blue eye of his, then froze. Frowned, and then both his natural and magical eye zeroed in on him with intensity.

Whatever the magic eye saw, Moody didn't actually remark on it. Though he didn't really have a chance to remark on it either, as at that moment Professor McGonagall came down the staircase with her arms full of books.

She paused, taking in the chaotic scene.

"What is going on here?"

"Hello, Professor McGonagall," greeted Moody, and a twitch of his wand gave the floating ferret another harsh shake.

Her eyes tracked the poor animal through the air. "What are you doing?"

"Teaching," replied Moody, unconcerned.

"could you stop him, please?" Sans asked. "this lesson is in bad taste."

She processed that for a moment, then gasped. "Moody, is that a student?!"

With a glance between her and the kid-turned-animal in question, the imposter professor glibly replied, "Technically it's a ferret."

"No!" She immediately dropped her books, running down the stairs and drawing her wand. A sharp crack of magic later, and a bruised and embarrassed Malfoy reappeared, slumped in a heap on the stone floor. The kid looked more worse for wear than Laura, and she had literally just been on fire.

Because of Malfoy himself, true, but the point still stands.

As the professors got into a debate on the merits of shifting the shape of their students, Sans crouched down in front of the ex-ferret.

"i take it you didn't listen to my advice," he said. Under his glamour, his eye sockets were completely empty—it made the eyes of the illusion look cold and dead.

Malfoy shivered, but didn't back down. "Who are you to tell me what to do?"

"good point." Sans closed his eyes for a moment. "i suppose in this situation, i'm a friend to the girl you caught on fire."

He actually winced at that, and his gaze darted over to her. That was enough to tell Sans that he hadn't meant to hit her—he probably hadn't meant to hit anyone. The kid might be a jerk and a bully, but he hadn't reached the point of willingly setting people on fire. So he's got that going for him, at least.

Sans straightened again, stretched, and then he held out a hand to help the other boy up. When he didn't take the offer—because of course he didn't—the skeleton dropped the blue magic he had used around his hand to temporarily fill-in the glamour.

"anyway, i have another bit of advice for you."

Malfoy pulled himself to his feet, unsteady, and glared at him. When he replied, it was more statement than question. "Do you now."

"yeah." He stuffed his hands into his pockets. "you should apologize to her."

The Slytherin actually looked stunned for a second, then his expression flashed through a very twisty mix of aversion, affront, and—briefly—agreement.

Sans nodded to himself, then headed back to where Hermione was helping Laura to stand. The golden retriever with them looked like he was trying to help too, but he really wasn't contributing much. Harry and Ron were apparently still explaining their version of events to the professors.

"hey hermione, hey paddy," he said with a tried yawn.

"Hello," she greeted. "I'm going to take her to the infirmary."

Sirius barked.

Sans would have offered to help, but if he was to support somebody as they walked he also would have needed to fill out his whole arm and shoulder with blue magic the whole time in order to do so. Luckily, it seemed that Laura only really needed help getting back upright. She was a little unsteady as she walked, but mostly fine.

So: "if you don't need me…" He yawned again. "i'm gonna go sleep somewhere."

"What?" Hermione asked, worried. She knew he hadn't had lunch—though she also knew that Sirius had taken it upon himself to deliver his friend some food. Still.

Then, when Sirius growl-barked at him, she rightly interpreted that to mean that he hadn't eaten much.

"Shouldn't you get some dinner first?"

"nah, it's fine."

He turned and headed toward a random door, opening it to reveal a mostly-empty broom closet. There was nobody inside, so it would work nicely. Not that he was going to sleep there, though it should be mentioned that he wouldn't be above doing that.

"welp. 'night."

And he stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

Hermione opened it a second later, but he was already gone.

Author's Note:

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Undertale.

Hey, so, know how I said the chapter yesterday was half of the regular update? Turns out it was a bonus chapter, since this part really got away from me and is a full ~3,000 word update.
I'm sure you don't mind.

Well, whatever. Sans is glad that's over with.
Should be easier from here on in, right?

Also, more fanart!

A reader named pundertaleundertale drew a picture of Sans, Sirius, and Lupin all standing together being their typical selves. Thank you for drawing it, because it's amazing, and I love it! Sans is so short, it's positively fabulous! The fun gang's in town, so watch out everybody else.

Agent 3 Novi has drawn another great picture too, and it's super adorable! Sans's expression is the best, I swear. It's fantastic, thank you so much!

The links are on my profile, since from there you should actually be able to copy text.

Updates are on the first of the month.
Thanks for all of the reviews, favorites, and follows! We had actually just passed 1,234 reviews when I posted chapter 37—what a fabulous number! Hearing how much you've been enjoying the story is amazing, and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read this!

Ninuhuju: That he is! It's one of his special skills, though he would never mention it during a job interview for reasons that should be obvious.

A voice 0K: I believe that Sans having Papyrus's scarf at the end of a Genocide run isn't actually in the game, but the real reason he doesn't have the scarf here is because I hadn't even considered that at the time. As for Chara having the knife in the void, they enter the void with whatever they had on them—shirts, shoes, and stabbing implement included.

See ya on the flipside, everyone!